Picture this: It’s a warm late spring evening out on your favorite back bay or saltwater river . Tide and weather are perfect...the striper fishing should be EXCELLENT. You get to your spot and all around you, stripers are boiling on the surface. Awesome. You make cast after cast into the frenzy with your big popper and nothing...... you have probably experienced your first worm hatch.
What is a Cinder worm?
What you witnessed were Cinder worms coming up from the bottom. This happens in salt ponds and estuaries when the water reaches the 60s for the first time in the spring .
When you encounter a worm hatch, the water will be covered in what looks like big rain drops...but if you look closely, with polarized glasses, you will see what looks like millions of tiny worms wriggling around just sub surface. These worms aren't actually hatching as the name hatch implies, but rather they are in engaged in the act of spawning. And as you will experience, stripers will be keyed right in on them as soon as they start. This is where the fishing problem starts for many fisherman....there is so much available bait in the water and the stripers are dialed in on the size and profile of these worms like an wise, old native trout would on a specific hatch......
Where does the Worm Hatch Happen?
The Cape boasts a ton of salt ponds, estuaries, or other back bays ,in nearly every town, that you can do some early spring recon on. When you are checking these places out, make certain the following conditions are present:
The location must have a dark muddy bottom. These worms are decidedly mud dwellers, if you see a large expanse of white sandy bottom, there will likely be no worms unless a super strong current carries them into that area.
Worms do not prefer the open ocean. I have only experienced cinder worm spawns way inland . Check the tails of harbors, estuaries, salt ponds, and salt water rivers.
Of course, you will want to concentrate your efforts on spots well known for holding decent amounts of stripers in late spring (remember, water temps need to be near 60 degrees).
Check out the Cape's Best Fishing Report to see what areas have been producing to that point.
Find a few likely spots and check on them regularly starting in late April. Worm hatches don't happen every day, so, you will have to put some time in. Check your spots every day until you run into a hatch. In our experience, worm hatches most reliably occur during the first half of May and run into early June depending on the weather.
Keep checking water temps the last week or so of April if the weather has been decent. Again, as it approaches 60, your odds of seeing a hatch go up dramatically.
What to fish with
So, you did your homework and actually found a worm hatch, now comes the hard part— getting a fish to hit. The worm hatch is when knowing how to fly fish really pays off. If you don't know how to cast a fly rod, but want to learn in time for spring striper fishing, email us at info@themightyfish.com and we will schedule you a private or group lesson. These fish can be caught on a spinning rod- we will address that at the end.
Fishing your worm fly with confidence.
Whether you elect to buy your cinder worm fly from our fly shop, online or, tie your own, it will likely work if the size and coloration is close enough. There are plenty pictures online of what a cinder worm looks like...just try to get as close as possible. Don't get frustrated if they don't hit in the first few casts-It can take a minute to find the right retrieve and presentation. Sometimes it can be fish a cast, sometimes a little more frustrating. Before changing your fly, experiment with different retrieves and cast placements. If those don’t work and you believe the fish have really seen your fly a dozen or more times, only then should you change it.
Worm Hatch Etiquette
You will likely be suprised at the size of some of the striped bass that go crazy on these tiny worms.We usually think of stripers as a big bait fish that prefers squid, herring, bunker or mackerel.That perception is true alot of the time, but there are situations where bigger fish will really key in on very small bait like the worm hatch. As cool as hatches are, they can also be disrupted by too much fishing pressure, which is why fishermen are very protective about their timing and locations. There is room for everyone to enjoy them each spring, just as long as anglers are respectful of the location, the fish, and each other.
Catching on a spinning rod
Though it's easier to match the hatch more precisely with a fly rod and appropriate worm fly imitation, you can catch them decently with a light spinning rod. Small rubber baits like the Berkley Gulp worm and the RONZ can make excellent spinning rod imitations. Now, if it is windy, you will have to fish these on a small jig head to be able to cast them decently. However, if you can fish them on just a plain , unweighted worm hook, the action and presentation will be vastly superior. Worm hatches come in all shapes and sizes, so you may need to cut these rubber baits down to accurately mimic size and profile.
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